Indux
by Kuri333
Summary: For Hermione there were just a few weeks, but such a long way between that small primary school and the steaming engine of the Hogwarts Express. Canon.
1. Prologue

You walk down the familiar corridors, now quite empty, knowing that this is the last time. At least as a student. And, as a matter of fact, you realise, you are not even a student anymore. You have just graduated… you pause to check your watch… twenty-three minutes ago. Of course, graduating from primary school is not such a big deal - you even shake your bushy hair on this thought - but still. This is supposed to be an occasion anyway and you should be hurrying up instead of wandering these halls.

But you keep wandering nonetheless, ignoring for a moment that your parents must be waiting for you.

Without noticing and without pausing on your way, you stick your finger between the bricks on the wall and follow the path. It feels uncomfortable and you take it out after a couple of meters. When you were little, your thin finger would fit in perfectly and you clearly remember yourself walking down this very same corridor, a lot shorter and thinner, following the path between the bricks. The gesture brings back a wave of memories, and you wonder why, if you have hardly ever been actually happy in here, you are feeling sad now that you are leaving for good.

A door suddenly opens and a girl about your age emerges from the bathroom. Both jump startled, none of you expected anybody else to be there. After recognising, you look at each other for what seems like a long moment, but it is probably just a couple of seconds. It seems as if you have a lot to say; you Hermione, at least, know that there are a many things you want to tell Lisa, things that go back probably since you have stopped talking to each other in second grade. She opens her mouth first though and, even though you always want to be the first one talking, you decide to allow her to say whatever it is she has to say to you.

"Freak!" Lisa mutters, before braking into a run towards the exit.

You should have known better than to expect something else. Epiphanies, after all, usually remain in books or movies.

Shaking your head again, you run too. Your parents are waiting and there is nothing else for you in this old, red brick school.


	2. Anticipation

Holidays are boring but they certainly were better than having to go to school. You can spend all your free time reading now, without worrying somebody would sneak from behind you and take away your book while calling you names. You don't have to pretend to be paying attention to what the teacher had to say – something you probably know by heart already – while your fingers ache to grab the book under your desk and read it, instead of reviewing, for the hundredth time, how you were supposed to multiply large numbers.

Mum is going to call you anytime now, you are going to London, to buy all your supplies for your next school. Of course it is early for that, summer holidays had started only a week ago, but you have asked, and asked and even begged your parents to get a head start. You, Hermione, are curious, you always are, and you feel as if you need to know what is going to happen next year, and to prepare for that.

You wonder what a boarding school should be like. If you were to expect the worse, the perspective of sharing not only the classroom but also the dormitory with other girls that could turn out like the ones in your previous school would be terrifying. Since that sort of thought has not yet been proven to be true, you allow yourself to expect something better.

Maybe this time not everybody would be as bad. Maybe you will even taste some of that thing you have read about on many of your books. Friendship.

Of course you have had friends, of course you know what sharing is. And yet…it had been one thing to share toys or colour pencils. How does friendship works for grown-up kids?

You can only imagine.

It is not important, really, you say to yourself. It is better not to wonder and to think instead about the few certainties you already have. There is a brochure on your night table and even though you are careful, the folds look worn from all the times you have opened it.

Your gaze rests on the picture of the library. The only time you have been there, before the school year was over, and you had asked the librarian if it would stay open during the summer. She had chuckled and you had felt embarrassed, you do not like being laughed at.

Finally Mum is calling you; it is time to go to London. Maybe you would be able to persuade her to go to the movies later. Even if you don't just the books lying ahead of your are quite an interesting perspective. You jump to your feet and, without taking a glance at the mirror, you run down the stairs.


End file.
